Creative Process

Creative Process

Jill's Creative Process

In my painting, the catalyst is nature. Being immersed in it, my soul is moved to create. A multitude of elements envelope my being, embrace me, enter my soul. Through this act of painting, my soul engages in a dialogue with nature.The mystery is before me. Silence: I must enter the realm of silence. Listen: not to pre-conceived notions, not to voices of the to-do list, but to the sounds of the reeds swishing together in the breeze. Smell the earth, notice the movement, like brush strokes zigzagging across the page of sky and earth in a calligraphy that shows the way to my soul.I must render, not state; suggest, not complete; remain sensual, not intellectual; pure, not literal; courageous, not safe; and never misuse the powers I have been given.There are so many choices. Focus on one. Which one? The one you love. How do I start: from the inside out, or from the outside in? I begin from within, placing shadows to give birth to the light.

In my silence I can hear. In my blindness I can see. In my spirit I can touch and taste the mystery. It is not what I expect. For if it was, it would be calculated; it would be safe; it would not be created because it would not be unknown. It would not be my “blue peninsula,” as Emily Dickinson calls it. The true mystery reveals itself as I work, as I let go. It is a gift. There, the blank canvas exists. It exists to make one taste the eternal.

A passage from Dante’s Paradiso that says it all:“Within its depths I saw ingathered,bound by love in one mass,the scattered leaves of the universe:Substance and accidents and their relations,as though fused, so that what I speak of is one single flame.”.